DENVER -- More than 100 foreclosed homes in Colorado are now off the market. They were sold to the highest bidder at an auction on Saturday.

In many cases, that amount was well under market value, and not all buyers plan to live in the houses. Some are investors from out of town, out of state or overseas.

Even at reduced prices, neighbors are encouraged.

Donna Hickey found herself baby-sitting the house two doors down on more than one occasion.

“I’ve noticed that when it snows, you see footprints back there, and I wonder, ‘Who’s roaming around this house?’” said Hickey.

There is relief in knowing these houses sold over the weekend at auction, even if they sold for far less than their assessed value.

“I don’t care about the price it sold for. Just to have the house being lived in. It’s been empty for a while,” said Hickey.

“The condition it’s in now, I don’t think I would pay that much for it,” said Mary Boswell about a foreclosure home across the street from her that sold at auction.

Many real estate experts like Charles Roberts said auctions are necessary to sop up the bloated housing supply.

“The fact is: prices have dropped and what we need are people to come in and buy these properties,” said Roberts, a realtor and mortgage loan officer with Your Castle Real Estate.

Roberts said even if the buyers are sometimes investors, getting the properties off the market can be a good thing.

“The damage has been done. Folks have lost their houses. Now it’s time to recover,” said Roberts.

Hickey has worried the empty place two houses down would become a haven for vandalism and illegal activity.

“It’s only been cleaned up, fixed up, paid attention to the last two weeks. Like, just the last two weeks.”

Boswell hopes the auction of the neighborhood eyesore signals the beginning of the recovery – and she isn’t too worried about what will happen next. "Because I think eventually it’s going get better," said Boswell. "It used to be a beautiful little house. It had flowers and the whole neighborhood was beautiful, but within the years it’s gone down. I just try to look forward to tomorrow and go from there.”

Roberts said the 2009 tax credit for first time home buyers (someone who hasn’t owned in three years), is helping to turn the market around as well. The tax credit gives an automatic $8,000 tax credit to first time buyers. Roberts calls it juicing the system.

"I think we’ve actually found the bottom under $200,000 in Denver. As you get up to $300, $350,000, the market is reasonable. But as you go higher and as you step up every $100,000 the market gets more difficult and more difficult to sell.”

Roberts said the housing market can be segmented into sub-markets. The higher priced the home, the longer it's taking to sell. He said there is 56 months of inventory on $1 million plus homes.